After the Fortnite vehicles I'm a fair bit underwhelmed by the Mongoose. It has 2 features: rolling wheels and 3-position rear wheel struts. It *looks* gorgeous but it needs more play value and I was expecting it.

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Some new stuff spotted at Target today:

"Halo: Infinite" "Heroes and Villains" 3pk (all repacks).

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I am usually against toylines pumping out cheap repaints as they are lazy cash grabs, but I am actually hoping Wicked Cool Toys/Jazwares does repaints in the "Halo" line as almost all of the Covenant troop types have multiple colorways while still having the same digital model.

Grunts traditionally come in orange (which we got in the 2pk with the Marine), red (shown as a prototype at the 2020 Toy Fair), blue (coming in wave 2) and yellow.

Elites usually pop up in yellow/gold (like we got in the Ghost set, Amazon 3pk and the upcoming wave 2 release), red, blue and purple.

Jackals usually have armor in blue (like the single figure), red and grey (shown as a prototype at the 2020 Toy Fair)

Brutes have gold (Chieftain like in the 2pk with MC), red (single pack Captain), blue and grey.

There may be other colors that I am missing, but you can see where I am going with this. They can use a slot in each wave for a Covenant troop recolor (hopefully with a different weapon each time) and I will not complain. They can use the money saved on tooling to expand the range with other Covenant troop types like Drones that usually only show up in 1 color or for individual characters like the Arbiter.

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Stupidly unlike Construx; Jaz is sculpting unique armor onto the Covvies instead of making a core buck for each species and giving them unique swap-on armor.

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That is a cool idea in theory, but McFarlane did that and it resulted in a bunch if little fiddly bits loose in the packaging

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That's because Todd cares about appearance over all other issues and thus makes fundamentally-crap toys. Construx gear stays where it's put, in my experience.

Altho, JazWares isn't doing so great with the Brute helmets going fiddly-bit anyway, lol.

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Jazwares/Wicked Cool Toys "Halo" Covenant figures with McFarlane weapons:

They scale nicely save for the tiny plasma rifles (not McFarlane, but the original license holder whose name escapes me at the moment), but here they come off more like plasma sub machineguns which works for me!

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Wave 3:

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Still don't get excited for the Jarheads but I'm all up in those Covvie asses.

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More Jazwares "Halo" 3.75" wave 3 pics.

Hopefully higher resolution images are released soon.

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Still too many MCs, but a decent assortment otherwise. The turret is plenty cool.

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Yeah, I want that turret.

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My local Walmart had wave 2 yesterday, I picked up the Marine Sniper. One thing I wish toy companies would do is soft hands with hard weapons. The other way around really warps the weapons and makes holding them super difficult.

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Today I hit 3 Walmarts and 4 Targets.

An observation:

I think the "Halo" line is on its way out as all of the Targets had the entire line on clearance. Prices varied from store to store as they do not seem to be doing their markdowns at the same time.

Single figures (including the recently released wave 2): $4.99 - $6.99 (regular retail is $9.99)

2pks: $9.99 - $13.99 (regular retail in $19.99)

Target exclusive 3pk: $14.99 - $19.99 (regular retail is $29.99)

Warthog: $14.99 - $19.99 (regular retail is $24.99)

Hopefully this is just to clear out old stock and make way for wave 3, but I have my doubts as the stock doesn't seem to move very often

I just hope wave 3 makes it out before they can the line as the shield Jackals are finally coming. They should have come in wave 1 instead of the sniper Jackals as they are more iconic.

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Hit the jerkpot last night and nabbed the new 3pack with Tavaros and Hyperius (and an active camo Mister Queef I don't care about and didn't take any pics of, sorry) and the Mantis mech. They were $30 and $40, respectively; and are *excellent* deals for the price, imho. Tavaros instantly became my fave figure in the whole line just for the personality in his 'Eric the Red' hairstyle and [LASER BLAST]' crown-helm.

While the Mantis could definitely stand to have some 'deluxing' here and there (more paint touches, it feels too light for its size, and I would have appreciated a ball hip joint), it's an outstanding toy and you're an absolute fool to pass it up. It crouches down to about 14"/35cm and extends up to about 22"/55cm with swivel joints at the inner and outer hips, hinged knees and ankle, and rocker toe joint. The arms have a pair of perpendicular swivels for the shoulders, hinged elbow, and ball-motion wrists with a hinge/swivel combo. The artic is finished off with a swivel waist and hinged cockpit that has a pair of footpegs on top. I was planning to get a trio of them to be Scouts for my MicroMan ScopeDog and Acid Rain Stronghold/Raptor combo; but this bastard is the biggest one of them all so *those* guys are *this* thing's support mecha, lol.

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